Rat

Face

It is raining. It is night. There is a breeze blowing in from some far off place, and it brings more rain and more cold. Mud is everywhere, and it clings to my fur.

I am miserable.

Worse: I am hungry. We are all hungry. I cannot remember the last time I fed. Our tribe has been reduced to just a handful of individuals, and I do think I would be better off on my own. I should return to my homeland of wide-open fields and a bounty of food. Why did I ever come to this desolate place?

The artificial stones we walk on hurt my feet. I must rest and let the pads on my paws recover. But I cannot rest. The huger drives me forward. It even pushes through my pain.

At least the rain means I am no longer thirsty.

My tribe is small. Can it even be called a tribe anymore? We are not even a pack. We are a rabble. Even so, I am not the leader. There are others that are bigger than me. We do what they say, even when I do not agree. I find I rarely agree: they do not make good decisions, and our tribe has suffered because of this. And still there is no food. How long will it be before my fellow rats realise that the biggest are not the smartest?

How long will it be before I realise that, and act on it? Every time the star circles me in the sky, and the light changes from bright to dark, I ask myself this very question. Every time I fall asleep with my stomach growling like a dog, I wonder when I will be brave enough to stand up to them--or even when I will be cowardly enough to run away in the dark. There is nothing stopping me, after all. I can leave at any time.

And then what? Then I will return to my home in the rolling hills, which I left so long ago. I miss it. I have forgotten what freedom tastes like. This search for companionship has cost me more than I have gained.

And now here we are. Starving. Lost. Another night without food, without shelter, without purpose. Even worse, it is wet. But our leader has found something. A source of food. He is adamant.

I do not believe him.

But I follow, because he is the leader and I am part of the tribe. I follow him through the strange structures that surround us, full of random objects that no place in the natural world. We pass scraps of food everywhere; most of it is not worthy of stopping but we are so hungry that we stop and eat, all the same. It is not enough food for all of us. It is not enough food for even one of us.

But our leader is constantly pressing us to go forward. So we go forward.

We enter a tunnel. It is dark here. There are shadows everywhere. It is damp and dirty. I can see signs that others have been here: another tribe; perhaps even creatures that we have mated with, long ago. I grow wary. If another tribe has been here, then nothing will be left. It will be like all the others. We will go home hungry.

Not that we have a home.

But there it is: our target. I stiffen, because I am terrified. I was expecting food, not this. I look to our leader to be certain. I must be confused, because surely this isn't the food. This is a mistake.

But there is no mistake. This is the food. I cannot contain my horror.

The food is a beast.

It lies there, covered in rags. It is hairy and smelly. It smells like all the other beasts, but worse. It smells like urine. It is not dead, but it is close. It groans. It lies in the shadows on a bed of stiff board. It hardly even moves as we approach. It just keeps groaning.

Our leader is the first to approach. It gets first bite. I am still terrified, because this beast is a dangerous thing, and just because it is close to death does not mean it is dead. These creatures are unpredictable, and they are above us--I do not mean that they are better creatures than us, but they are above us in the food chain. If we kill one, others will come for us. There can be no doubt about that. They are dangerous.

But the leader will not be denied. It runs forward and takes a nibble. The beast just groans, hardly even moves. I see fresh blood and the smell is intoxicating. Surely this cannot be right, and yet I am seeing it before my open eyes. Our leader has found us food at last.

The rest of us close in, but we still hang back. The leader has not finished, and he must finish before we can feed. I see him run in again and take another bite, this one bigger than the last.

I sense the danger.

The beast has an eye open now. It is looking at us, at our leader, back at us. I can see it thinking. Our leader has not noticed the beast looking at us. It thinks it is still unconscious. It still thinks it is safe.

Our leader closes in for another bite. I can see his mouth open wide; he is going to take a big bite. I am too afraid to cry out.

He is going for the beast's face. Surely he can see the open eye? Surely he knows the danger? He cannot be that much of a fool that he does not see.

My leader does not see.

Our leader goes in for a bite, and he is just so much smaller than the beast that it is almost comical. Almost. The beast reacts with a speed I have never seen before: he grabs the leader around the middle and squeezes.

Our leader lets out a squeak, but it is soon cut off in the most horrible way. The beast sits up and stares at our leader and it becomes very clear that it is just as hungry as we are. In a single bite he rips into the leader's body and tears it in half.

Our leader is dead. Its corpse is in the beast' hands. Its face is covered in our leader's blood. It dribbles down his chin.

I run. I do not look back. This life is not for me.